Reflection Sidestory One: Heaven and Hell
by Aleh
Summary: Excerpts from a biography of Saotome Ranma, Tenmou no Heijin.


Disclaimer:  
If you think that I own any of the series used in this, please see your   
psychiatrist about lowering your dosage of your dopamine agonist.   
  
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The following are excerpts from the third edition of Chizuru Noriko's   
masterpiece "Heaven and Hell: The Life of Saotome Ranma" (copyright 2873, 2878   
and 2883 by Rabid Squirrel Publications), which is generally considered to be   
both the best and the most accurate biography of Saotome Ranma ever written. The   
full text is available in E-book format from Rabid Squirrel's psinet page, or in   
hardcopy at your local matter replication center for the price of three Alliance   
credits or fourteen Neoyen.  
  
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Reflection,  
  
By  
  
Aleh  
  
Sidestory One: Heaven and Hell  
  
Introduction  
  
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When Meiou Setsuna approached me, offering to help me write a biography of   
Saotome Ranma, I was genuinely shocked. Here I was, a poor resident of Neo-  
Chicago who had just barely managed to scrape through high school, someone whose   
entire future hinged upon getting into college and who knew with unyielding   
certainty that she would fail, and I was being offered an opportunity that many   
professional journalists would literally kill for. My first reaction, of course,   
was of disbelief.  
After I recovered from my initial shock, I was bursting with curiosity.   
Meiou-sama, though, just smiled, looking like the metaphorical cat that ate the   
equally metaphorical canary. "You are, of course," she said, her voice showing   
slight amusement, "wondering why I chose you."  
As she saw me nod frantically, her smile changed subtly. It's only now,   
after working with her for as long as I have, that I recognize the change as   
what it was. She went from being the cat that ate the canary to being one that   
was about to pounce. The words that followed that shift in expression would   
change my life forever and send me down a path that I never would have even   
considered possible before. As she spoke, her words forever etched themselves on   
the stone of my heart.  
"I have been searching for years, looking for someone who could truly   
understand what he was, what he went through, and why he did what he did in   
hopes that his legacy would not die out. In the end, it came down to one person.   
You."  
  
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It was with an odd mixture of reluctance and enthusiasm that I began work   
on this book. How could I do justice to Saotome Ranma? I was, as I mentioned   
earlier, fresh out of High School and had almost no experience with writing   
beyond the occasional English paper. Saotome Ranma was, and still is, one of the   
greatest legends of our time. Wolfgang Smith's "Ranma and Akane" is considered   
to be the greatest romantic play since "Romeo and Juliet", and has been made   
into literally thousands of movies, both of the old-fashioned projection and the   
modern holovid variety. Hanaguchi Natako's classic manga, "Ranma no Kesshi", had   
recently broken the ten billion barrier in numbers of volumes sold, and was one   
of my childhood favorites. The anime based off of it had been a perennial   
ratings winner, and was still aired regularly despite having stopped production   
over a hundred years earlier. To this day, 'Ranma' is among the most popular   
children's names in Crystal Tokyo. How, I wondered, could I compete with that?  
Nonetheless, I had an advantage that none of the others did. I had the   
help and the confidence of Meiou Setsuna, the Guardian of Time. With her aid, I   
actually managed to speak to people who had known my childhood hero personally,   
and even a few who had been there during those years in Nerima, those years that   
forged him into the man we know of today. I found that many of my preconceptions   
of him were flawed, that he wasn't the hero I had thought him to be. No, that   
isn't quite fair. He was even more of a hero than I had thought, but in a   
completely different way. Ranma was not some hero out of a cheap romance novel,   
nor was he a perfect specimen of humanity. Ranma was an arrogant boy with little   
to nothing by way of social skills who nonetheless had a heart of gold. He would   
risk his life to save someone who had just finished trying to kill him, and he   
cried himself to sleep after the first time he had been forced to kill, despite   
the fact that his opponent had been reborn. In fact, he later went on to forgive   
Saffron for almost killing the woman he loved, even going so far as to adopt the   
Phoenix King as his brother. Ranma wasn't the wise, all-knowing sage that   
Jameson portrays him as, but a human being who constantly found himself in   
situations that he could not control.  
Of course, this was all before Akane's death. That event, more than any   
other, changed him into what we remember. Where before his heart was warm and   
caring, afterwards he hid behind a wall of iron. Where he cried over his actions   
at Jusendo, where his foe was promptly reborn, he went on to destroy an entire   
people. As he himself once said, he was "a katana forged in hellfire, wielded by   
the hand of heaven". From being a martial artist, he became a warrior.  
  
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It was with great shock that I learned that Setsuna-sama was actually   
planning on using the Gates to help me with my work. As such, I literally didn't   
know where to start. It was actually Setsuna-sama who suggested our first stop.   
After leaving the Gates of Time, I found myself in front of a rather unassuming,   
by modern standards anyway, house in the Nerima ward of Old Tokyo. When I saw   
the sign on its door, though, the truth of the situation penetrated. This was   
where it all began, where the Blade of Heaven's Vengeance became who he was. I   
was standing in front of the Tendou, now the Ono, dojo.  
I would have just stood there and stared, but Setsuna-sama gently nudged   
my shoulder, reminding me of why we were here. Steeling myself, I approached the   
door and knocked.  
  
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Author's Notes:  
As you might have guessed, this sidestory's all about World One. While   
it's framed in the form of excerpts from a biography about Ranma, it will be   
more about what happened to everyone around him, from the Nerima Wrecking Crew   
to the distant future of the world and what happened after he left.  
I'm also going to vent a little and explain the characterization of Akane.   
While she's not a saint, either in the manga or the anime, her personality is   
nothing like some authors (*Cough* Animeaddiction *Cough*) describe. Of course,   
the Viz dub pretty much ruined her character; I'm not even going to get into the   
details beyond saying that you should watch both versions of Season One, Episode   
Five one after the other.  
Oh, and if you can explain the reference in the disclaimer (I already   
understand it), I'll give you a free answer to any one question you might ask   
about the main story, within certain limits (namely, it has to be a *SINGLE*   
question, not a compound one, and has to be reasonably specific). For example,   
"Are you planning on matching Minako up with someone, and if so, who?" is not   
acceptable, whereas "Who, if anyone, are you planning on matching Minako up   
with?" is. For the second rule, "What are your planned matchups?", for example,   
would be far too general. 


End file.
